


Sinners and Fools

by Captain_Dogfish



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Other, Spoilers S3M10 The Man Who Sold the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:26:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7693108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Dogfish/pseuds/Captain_Dogfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response fic to "The Man Who Sold the World" featuring all my horrible emotions. Goes through the entire mission, gender-neutral Five. Formerly (un-originally) titled "The Man Who Sold the World"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sinners and Fools

**Author's Note:**

> Finally came up with a real title because I heard Lauren Aquilina's songs "Sinners" and "Fools". I'm especially in love with "Sinners", but I think you should totally go listen to both of them.

The pain you felt at Sara’s death wasn’t like this pain. No, that pain was a deep ache that echoed in your empty chest. A hollow pain. A slow, burning pain that ached and ached in your lungs and throat, a pain that pounded in your head. It was the pain that you always felt while grieving. It is all emptiness where love used to be.

This pain is different. It’s heartbreak, pure and simple. It is not like the empty feeling of grief. It’s like being stabbed and shattered and crushed. You loved this man standing before you. Loved him fiercely, defiantly. Loved him even after he betrayed you, betrayed Abel. Loved him, and broke with him when Jamie took a bat to him. Loved him, and ran from his anguished screams.

Loved him and mourned him in secret, in silence. Shoving those closest to you away like an animal retreats to nurse its wounds. It took three days for you to finally go back to running, with all the other runners scared to speak to you lest you lash out at them in your agony. It took you much longer than that to look Jamie in the eye.

Yet he’s here. Alive. Not quite in one piece, not with the mask covering God only knows what kind of wounds and his left hand missing. But alive. You want to go to him, to hug him, this man who must still be the one you love, but with Deadlock snipers raining bullets down all around you and fear and common sense getting the best of you—he’s a traitor, after all. He betrayed you once, why not twice? —you run past him, ignore his shouts, try to ignore how he chases after you. He always used to chase you around Abel, games of impromptu tag that ended in breathless giggles. That memory hurts.

“Hold up, Five! My superb fitness levels have fallen a bit, recently.” He laughs, an unholy sound. It’s bitter, deranged almost. Not what you remember. “Funny, that. Never would have imagined getting beaten half to death would have had a negative effect on my stamina.”

Ass. He was always an ass. A show off, fitness obsessed, wise-cracking ass. It’s half the reason you fell so hard for him. You never did manage to get along well with those goody-goody church kids your mother favored. You always preferred the ones with jagged-edged personalities and wicked eyes. Even better if they had tattoos and maybe a few piercings. Simon had delivered on all of that. You loved him for it.

“It is me, you know. Your old mucker Simon. I’d take the mask off, only I don’t think you’d want to see what’s underneath.”

He laughs again, as if his pain could ever amuse you. You’ve never heard him this bitter. He continues, tries to keep up the humor that long-ago passed the term ‘gallows’. You wish he wouldn’t.

“There’s enough nightmare fuel around for everyone, these days, isn’t there? No need to give you any extra.”

You pick up the pace a little. You always were good at running away from your emotions, from your problems. Is that what Simon has become to you? A problem to be escaped, not dealt with?

The anger in his voice is clear. “For God’s sake, Five, stop running away! I’ve been trying to get you alone for weeks. I’ve got some intel that you’re going to find very interesting about a certain someone. I’ll give you a clue—rhymes with ‘Pan Dark’.”

You flinch, even at the rhyme. Your arm still has scars from where Van Ark drove those three needles into your flesh, that godforsaken day when you lost everybody. Three matched blue-black circles right in the crook of your arm, complete with tiny grey lines snaking away from the injection sites. Paula’s said the marks might never fade.

“Five, I’m not kidding! Oh, never mind that now, just listen to me—you’re going the wrong way. You can’t hear Sam because the Deadlocks have got a signal blocker, and you’re running slap-bang into an ambush. You need to turn left. Left!”

You ignore him. Can’t stand to listen to his voice, not after what he’s done to you. You know what the others would say if they were here. _He’s a traitor, don’t listen to him_.

He laughs mirthlessly. “Suit yourself! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

He trails farther behind, giving you much-needed space. You breathe a little easier with some distance between the two of you. You almost relax, before the Deadlocks return.

“Get them, lads!” Bullets wiz left and right.

“Give up pal, you’re surrounded!” another one jeers.

One bullet passes alarmingly close to your body, nearly clipping your arm. “That was a warning, Abel runner. Next one goes through your head!”

You don’t know if you should stop or flee, so you choose the latter option. You wait for the bullets to rip you apart, and you hear the gunfire begin. It won’t be long now. You wait for the pain, wait to be gunned down, but it doesn’t come.

Behind you the Deadlocks begin to shriek in pain and terror, torn apart by gunfire that isn’t their own.

Simon. Of course he wants to be a bloody hero and save you. He always liked to play knight in shining armor. You don’t dare to look but by the sound of things he’s shot most of them. You jump when he suddenly appears next to you, urging you into a faster run. Matching you stride for stride, a gun in his hand.

“Quick, Five, over here. I can’t get them all.”

You don’t have much choice this time. It’s go with him or die. The only question would be who would put the bullet in your back, the Deadlocks or him.

“I’ve been practicing my marksmanship. I hope you’re impressed, Five. Stick with me, and I’ll see you safe. I’d give you my word on that, but you know what that’s worth, don’t you? Yeah, I know what you think it’s worth.”

Everything, that’s what it is still worth to you. But you can’t tell him that. Can’t tell him that, in spite of his betrayal, you still trust him when he promises you safety. He’s never let you down in the past. He’s never outright lied to your face before. You see no reason he would start now.

The Deadlocks don’t give up easy. Gunshots echo behind the two of you as you run on, deeper into the wilderness, farther away from Abel.

“Not in the clear yet, Five. We’re right in the heart of Deadlock territory. They’ve got the whole area from the river to the industrial estate locked tighter than a gnat’s chuff.”

He never could shut up. Never could pass up an opportunity to quip.

“Looking for you, I’ve explored a few back roads, if you know what I mean.”

You say nothing. You never were very talkative while running.

He sounds angry when he speaks again. “Silent treatment, then, is it? Yeah, I know. That’s always been your way. Even though you must have a thousand questions, like, how come you’re still alive, Simon? Didn’t Jamie beat you to death, Simon? Why have you only got one hand, Simon? What happened to your face, Simon, what the hell happened to your face?”

_What the hell did happen, Simon?_

“Do you know, I really did think Jamie was going to kill me. That’s not his way, oh no. He’s too bloody moral by half, is Jamie. Just a few punches, kick in the stomach. Don’t know why he didn’t go the whole hog and slap me. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to do it properly. Like he didn’t think I was worth it.”

_Slapping was always Janine’s job_ , you think. _And maybe it should be mine. I’m the one still in love with you, after all, you worthless bastard._

“Then he heard the zoms coming. Do you know what he did after that, Five, do you?”

You don’t want to know.

“He chucked that baseball bat down by my right hand. ‘That’s more chance than you gave any of us,’ he said. Mister bloody high and mighty. And then he ran off, and left me to the zoms.”

Your stomach is in painfully tight knots. Simon’s voice has only grown angrier, more bitter, as his terrible story unfolds. You want him to stop talking, you don’t want to hear it. But, like watching a car crash, morbid fascination keeps you silent and interested. He always was good at hypnotizing you with stories, like a snake hypnotizing a mouse before it strikes. You wonder what poison he will pick to end you, what direction his story will take that will cause the destruction of your soul.

“I couldn’t see the point, Five. Couldn’t see any reason to fight them off. Thought I’d just lie there and just let it happen. And then they were on me, a whole grey horde of them, grey and rotten and stinking to high heaven. My God, the smell of them, Five! You’ve never known pain like it. It went on and on and on, worse than I could have imagined.”

You feel sick. Physically ill. Your imagination had always been to good.

“And then it went on some more,” he continues with relentless determination. He knows you are in pain, but he doesn’t let up. He never could back down from a fight, a challenge, never could do a job half-heartedly. “I don’t know how long it was before I realized it wasn’t ending. I wasn’t dying. I don’t think I can anymore. How funny is that? I got exactly what I wanted and all it cost was everything that mattered.”

You wonder if he means all the friends he discarded in his quest to never die. Wonder if he means the safety of Abel, the companionship of the other runners, the tight-knit family built out of the ashes of a civilization laid to waste. You wonder if he means the relationship you had. Wonder if he means all of the above.

“It was too late by the time I knew. My left hand was gone, and my face.”

_So that’s how it happened._

He shakes off the story with alarming speed. His voice goes back to the one you know, the one you fell for. Happy, grimly cheerful despite the odds. “Anyway, look at me, rabbiting on when there’s a Deadlock checkpoint up ahead. You can be sneaky, can’t you, Five? You and me, we can sneak past together. Just like old times, yeah? Just like old times.”

There’s no choice, no option to turn back. You have to go with him even if with every step you feel like he’s driving a knife into your back. You wait for your legs to give out under the pressure of his merciless company. Wait for your body to quit moving, for your heart to give in (and then give out) to the incredible pain it is being put through. You wait for your soul to flee to either heaven or hell, you no longer know or care where you end up. But of course you keep going. Just like old times, indeed.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” He asks after a while. He breaks into song for a moment, “ _Out on the run again, enemies on our tail_.”

You don’t answer, but he’s no longer looking for a response from you. “Freedom ahead, a song in our hearts, probably ABBA.”

Your heart starts to break at that familiar memory, at the times you wandered Abel together and serenaded the others for fun, tried to woo Jack and Eugene and Maxine and Sam and Janine with butchered melodies and half-remembered lyrics, drunk on whiskey or moonshine or tequila or all three.

“And uh, oh yeah, you might want to duck.”

You obey with a reluctance that inspires déjà vu. This was your attitude those first few missions with Sara, when she’d shoot zombies over your head whether you ducked or not. The realization startles you into ducking lower than you mean to, but even so you only just manage to dodge a grasping, rotting hand. Zombie.

“Sorry about that,” he says although he doesn’t sound remotely sorry. “Should have warned you earlier. It’s my perimeter defense. Keeps out all the Deadlocks, and the Deadlocks keep out any other undesirables, leaving me nice and safe and hidden in the heart of their territory. Quite a clever idea, if I do say so myself.”

It’s a grudging acknowledgement you give him. A reluctant sort of respect. It’s terrifying and morbid and you don’t want to know how long it took him to find all these zombie body parts, but it is effective. You don’t dare stray more than a few feet from his side in case the invisible path he follows is the only safe one.

“Do you like it? My forest of limbs? Mostly arms, but I hang up the occasional leg, too, just for variety. It’s very handy.” His laugh is still empty. “Get it? Handy? Handy? You know, hands?”

He laughs again and pretends not to notice when you glance at the space where his left hand should have been.

“I’ve been harvesting them for weeks now. Well, it’s a hobby. Helps me fill up the long, lonely days. And it’s not like they can hurt me. I think I’m immune.

“Van Ark’s treatments, they were always unpredictable. One person they’d kill, another person they’d give the exact same thing and they’d end up with bloody super powers, near enough! Said it was retroviral, keyed to each individual’s DNA. Never found out exactly what it did to me. Just let them give me the jabs and hoped. Crazy, when I think about it now. Benefit of hindsight, eh, Five? He treated you too, didn’t he? I wish I could tell you what he’d done to you, but I don’t think even he knew. Still, time will tell. Time always tells.”

You know he’s looking at those unhealed puncture marks on your arm. He moves on quickly, as you are starting to expect. This new Simon, this hateful Simon, doesn’t seem to want to linger on the past any more than you do.

“Oh, mind your head there, Five. I call that one my burned oak. Fished all of those zom parts out of a fire, still twitching. They’re still twitching now, ugh, hideous isn’t it? Not like me. I used to think I was so perfect. The body beautiful, that was me. All those days at the gym, the tanning salon. I even had my chest waxed once.”

You’d never cared about his looks. Sure he was pleasant to look at, but you fell for his personality first and above all else. Maybe that’s why it hurts to be this close to him. He is a different man entirely than the one you knew.

“None of it mattered, though. It didn’t stop what was going on inside, where the gym and the tan couldn’t touch. Every moment in that perfect body of mine, cells dividing and dividing and dividing until someday, just one of them, only one, that’s all it takes. Then suddenly you’ve got your own death growing inside you. I was pretty on the outside, but inside, I was just rotting away. Probably a moral in there somewhere, if you’re the sort of person who believes in that kind of thing.”

_Cancer_. It’s the first word that springs to mind, based on his sparse and rambling description. You feel another part of your heart crumple beneath that knowledge. The two of you had been doomed from the start, it seems.

You leave behind the forest and step into a large clearing. It would have been peaceful if it wasn’t for the increscent moaning of zombies.

“Oh, careful now, Five. Don’t think you’re out of the woods just because you’re out of the trees. There’s still my little minefield to get through. Couldn’t let those zom heads go to waste. Be careful where you step, now. I left the spinal cords attached, so the heads could still bite. See there, thrashing around like a knobbly white snake. Don’t want you getting infected, do we? They’d shoot you, you know. All your good friends at Abel. First hint of gray, first little tickly cough, and it’s bang! Bang! They turn on you so fast, even the ones you l-“

He cuts himself off and you are surprisingly grateful. Grateful he didn’t immediately lump you in the with rest. He knows as well as you do why they shoot so quickly. He knows you were always the one to hesitate before pulling the trigger, always the one to require a second order to shoot. Always the one to whisper an apology and look away before firing. Always the one to go silent, crushed beneath emotions to terrible to comprehend, in the wake of any incident where you were forced to end the lives of your friends.

“Jenny didn’t hang about, did she?”

You don’t know why you flinch when he mentions Janine. He’d always assured you it was a simple flirtation with her, an entertainment for him to see how flustered he could get the usually immovable owner of Abel Township to be. You’d tolerated it. It had kept your relationship out of the gossip circling Abel, at least.

“First suggestion I might not be a hundred percent kosher, and she breaks out the UZIs!”

He laughs again and you start to hate that sound. That dead, joyless thing that sounds so similar yet so dissimilar to the bark of laughter you knew and loved. He must know it is getting to you, but he doesn’t let up. Not Simon. Never one to let it go, always the one to see how far he can push those around him.

He continues his monologue. “And what about you, Five? Did it give you a little pang, the tiniest little twinge when you heard I’d turned to the dark side? No, I don’t think so. You all knew it. You all sensed it. What I’m really like.”

Another part of your heart, crushed to dust. Does he truly think so little of you? Does he truly not know how much you loved him, cared for him? Does he know there are nights you can’t sleep over the echoes of his screams, when the guilt of leaving him to Jaimie’s punishment consumes your soul and drives you from your bunk to run endless loops on the track in an effort to forget? To earn forgiveness?

He doesn’t notice your anguish, to consumed with self-loathing to appreciate the dying soul of the person who still loves him. “Wicked to the core! That’s what my gran told me when I was eleven and she caught me sneaking a fag outside the school gate. ‘Ripe with sin!’ she’d say. That’s what you could all see. The sin just emanating off me, like evil B.O.”

If you weren’t in such pain, you might have smiled at that comment. So typical of the Simon you knew, to talk and joke about evil body odor. Or even just body odor. He and Jack had shared that immature sense of humor and drove everybody else crazy when they wouldn’t stop telling the stupidly bad jokes. Another memory too painful to linger over.

“You’d have done it, though, Five, wouldn’t you? If you’d have had the chance. Immortality, who wouldn’t? And Van Ark never asked much. Just a little bit of intel, just a little sample of our anti-zom spray. Where was the harm in that? I didn’t know Archie was going to die, of course I didn’t! I liked Archie. She was fun!”

_She was more than that, Simon, don’t you dare reduce her life like that._

“You’re all going to die, anyway, sooner or later. No one escapes the zoms forever, so what did it matter if I rang your bell a little early? I could take a few days off your lives in exchange for centuries extra of mine. Millennia! It seemed like such a fair exchange! It’s amazing, Five, the things you can make yourself believe.”

The things indeed. You can barely comprehend that terrible, twisted frame of mind he lived in for so long. You can’t begin to imagine making those same decisions, not even for immortality. How could you have been with him for so long and never noticed the signs of madness tearing him apart?

There’s silence for a time, a blessed relief from the painful conversation. Just running, sometimes walking, through the writhing field of zombie heads.

The quiet gives you time to think. You need to get home, need to return to Abel before the gates are barred for the night. You don’t know where Simon is taking you, don’t know if it’s all just another elaborate trap. You’ve been on edge the entire time you’ve been with him, but only now is it really beginning to hit you how neatly you could end up trapped. Trapped, alone, and you don’t want to know what else. Who knows what Simon has in store for you?

“Been a while since we’ve seen any Deadlocks. Starting to get edgy, Five?”

You hate that he’s noticed. It makes it that much harder to coordinate an escape. He looks at you in a strange way. The word _leer_ comes to mind.

“You look like you are. You look like a person who’s starting to think that maybe they don’t need old Simon anymore. Use me and throw me away, is that right? Yeah, of course it is. It’s okay, I understand. I wouldn’t trust me either. But I really do need to talk to you.”

_Then say something. Say anything. Tell me why you still are protecting me when you’ve made it clear you think I betrayed you and left you and gave up on your redemption, just like all the others._

Of course he doesn’t tell you.

“And here we are! That weeping willow beside this stream? Last landmark before we get there.”

_Wherever ‘there’ is_ , you think. You grimace at the sudden cheeriness in his voice. It sounds too forced, even for him.

He comes to a stop by the stream, turns to face you. All trace of that cheery tone of voice are gone, replaced with a deadly seriousness.

“So, this is it, Five. Make your mind up time. Stick with Simon, after all he’s done for you, after he saved you from the Deadlocks, led you right through the heart of their territory without a scratch, or toss him aside, and go back to your loyal friends at Abel.”

You hate that it’s not even a competition. You love him still, you really do, but he’s not the one who will be looking for you and grieving you if you die. It’s everyone back at Abel who’ll do that. You turn away, almost confident enough in where you are to just start running and never look back.

“Oh, oh, oh, that’s the way it’s going to be, is it?”

You hear the cocking of a gun and cold metal brushes against the back of your neck before you’ve even managed a step. Your body goes utterly still. Oh-so-slowly you turn back to face him, careful to never startle him. He keeps that gun pressed into the soft flesh of your throat as you move, keeps just enough pressure on your neck as you turn to look him in the eye, that you know he isn’t playing. He will shoot you if you do not comply. With that realization, resignation colors your every move. No escape.

“Sorry,” he says, not looking very sorry at all. “Wrong choice. I can’t let you go, not yet. So just keep running.”

It was always what you did best.

You refuse to acknowledge him for a long time after that. You hate how helpless he makes you feel. You hate feeling trapped by him, hate the way he controls you now. What you used to love most about your relationship was the freedom he gave you. Never demanding more time together, never demanding anything from you at all. He was low-maintenance like that. You gave your all because you loved him, though, and he always seemed to reciprocate. Now that’s gone, drowned in the little stream next to where he pulled a gun on you for the first time.

He seems to sense your anger; seems to understand he’s crossed over a line. There’s no going back now, you realize. You might still forgive him his past sins, but you can never forgive this manipulation. This betrayal of the trust the two of you had so carefully built. You can no longer count on him to have your back, no longer count on him to defend you if there isn’t something in it for him.

He’s almost hesitant when he finally speaks up again. “Nearly there, Five. Nearly at my lair.”

You know he’ll fake a sinister laugh. Your prediction comes true within seconds. You know him better than he thinks, even if your knowledge of him is driving you insane. So many contradictions. So much changed. So much the same.

“See those bushes on the horizon? I’ve got a little hut hidden up there. Not much, I know, but I’m working my way up to a super villain base in a volcano.”

In any other situation that comment would have been funny. Something you would have said while bantering back and forth after dinner, teasing the other runners about not being cool enough to even qualify as henchmen. But no longer, not with the statement that follows.

“Because I am the bad guy, we all know that. It’s the way Abel works – black and white, saint and sinner, them and us. Everyone, and then nasty Simon who only cared about himself.”

You always saw in shades of grey. Always saw the murky areas of life, always recognized the painful decisions that come from the hazy moments when morality is relative and survival is paramount. The two of you had always been alone in that viewpoint. It’s why you’d worked so well together. You understood one another in a way nobody else in Abel was capable of.

“Do you believe in forgiveness, Five?”

_Yes_.

“Me, I was brought up Catholic. All that repentance stuff is part of the package. A few Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, and Bob’s your uncle. Only it’s all rubbish. Even when I was a kid, I thought it made God seem a total moke. As if He’s some kind of poor abused wife. You treat him like shit, and the next day you’re back with a bottle of communion wine and a bunch of rosaries, telling Him, aw, you love Him really, and won’t He please take you back? I never saw how that could work.”

You never did either. Maybe that’s why you always gravitated towards the sinners over the saints.

“Anyway, look at me waxing all philosophical. Just push that ivy out of the way, Five, and uh…”

He trails off, reaches around you to undo a lock hidden behind the ivy you’ve just shifted. A stout wooden door creaks open at his touch.

“And here we are! Home sweet home! Ah, there’s no need to look so bloody nervous, I haven’t brought you here to kill you and eat you, you know. Who do you think I am, Jeffrey Dahmer?”

He leaves you standing in the entrance, unguarded for the first time since you’ve been with him. He’s rummaging around in a box across the room, shifting heaps of paper to the side.

“Van Ark didn’t trust me, you know. Didn’t trust anyone. But he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought. I managed to find out where all his bases were, not just the ones he wanted me to know about. Since he died, I’ve been trawling through them, looking for – well, I’m sure you can guess. I didn’t find it, anyway, but at a little underground lab near here, I did find something else. A certain stack of research about a certain company called Comansys. I know you’re interested in them, been listening in to that chatterbox, Sam, and you know me! I do like to be helpful.”

You do know that.

The paper rustles softly as he sorts it into a neat stack, uses a bit of twine to tie it all together. He offers you the bundle with a gallantness that makes your chest ache at its familiarity.

“So there they are. A present for you. Van Ark’s notes on Comansys. Half of it’s in code, but what I could decipher made for very interesting reading.”

You don’t move to accept the papers. You stare at him, truly look at him for the first time all day. Does he know how much being near him hurts you? Does he realize that there will be no going back after this, no returning to the simpler days when just loving each other was enough to survive? Does he know all that the two of you have lost?

He might know. He _must_ know. His eyes harden at your inaction, or maybe they turn to steel because of your silent questions, the accusal you can’t keep from your eyes.

He thrusts the bundle into your chest, shoving you backwards in the process. “Oh, take it, for God’s sake. Take it and go!”

He’s angry, angry enough to hurt you now. Your body realizes it before your mind, pumping you full of adrenaline before your brain even finishes wondering if he will strike you. He never raised a hand to you when you were together, but this Simon, this monster that has replaced Simon, is unpredictable. This is a man to fear.

You stumble away from him, only a few steps, that gross fear writ large on your face. He sees your terror. Notices the way your body trembles. Knows it is because you are now afraid of him, this man you used to love so much. Knows he has crossed yet another line, moved past another marker on the road to being despised by even you.

He slowly relaxes, takes a few deep breaths. Every action is calculated to defuse the situation. He turns away so you cannot see his face.

“Only please, just one favor. Tell them you found it yourself. Don’t tell them about me. Let Jenny, let everyone think that I’m dead. After all, I should be.”

_Am I supposed to think you are dead, to? Am I supposed to forget what we had? What you’ve thrown away?_

“Now go. Go!”

You flee. You don’t look back.

You wonder if he knows you left your tattered and broken heart in his doorway.

You wonder if you’ll ever recover from loving him.

You know you won’t.


End file.
